This opportunity did not arrive until, in 1674, the plantations council was dismissed, and colonial business was handed over to the Privy Council and placed in the hands of a standing committee of that body known as the Lords of Trade. This committee, which was more dignified and authoritative than had been the old council, at once assumed a firmer tone toward the colonies. It caused a proclamation to be issued announcing the royal determination to enforce the acts of trade, and it made the King's will known in America by means of new instructions to the royal governors there. It stated clearly the purpose of the Government to bring the colonies into a position of greater dependence on the Crown in the interest of the trade and revenues of the kingdom, and it showed no inclination to grant Massachusetts, with all the charges and complaints against her, preferential treatment. At the same time it was not disposed to pay much attention to religious differences, minor misdemeanors, and neighborhood quarrels, if only the colony would conform to British policy in all that concerned the royal prerogative and the authority of Parliament; but it made it perfectly plain that continued infractions of parliamentary acts and royal commands would not be condoned. Had the leaders of Massachusetts been more complaisant and less given to a policy of evasion and delay, it is not unlikely that the colony would have been allowed to retain its privileges; and had they been less absorbed in themselves and more observant of the world outside, they might have seen the changes that were coming over the temper and purpose of those in England who were shaping the relations between England and her colonies. But Massachusetts had grown provincial since the Restoration, looking backward rather than forward and moving in very narrow channels of thought and life, so that she was wrapped up in matters of purely local interest. The clergy were struggling to maintain their control in colony and college, while the deputies in the legislature, representing in the main the conservative country districts, were upholding the clerical party against some of the magistrates, who represented the town of Boston and were inclined to take a more liberal and progressive view of the matter. These country members saw in England's attitude only the desire of a despotic Stuart regime to suppress the liberties of a Puritan commonwealth, and failed to see that the investigation into the affairs of Massachusetts was but an effort to establish a colonial policy fundamental to England's welfare and power.